The History of Tarot

Tarot cards had their humble beginnings during the mid-15th century throughout many parts of central and southern Europe. Using a standard 52-playing card deck and the addition of 22 pictorial–or trump–cards, aristocrats would play various games that toyed with ideas of aristocracy and nobility. Players enjoyed these games for their ability to mix and match different entities in amusing settings: a lowly Fool with the Queen of swords resting beside a Tower, for example. Over time, however, players began finding much deeper meaning in the cards. Certain cards appeared at certain moments in their life to convey profound messages. The standard 52 card deck became known as the Minor Arcana, and the 22 trump cards, the Major Arcana. So it was that in the mid-18th century, Tarot formally split off from the world of playing card games and became a divination–or mystery solving–tool of its own. THE PURPOSE OF TAROT Today with its esoteric qualities, Tarot Card decks can serve many purposes such as helping to find true love or making important business decisions. While there is no wrong way to use Tarot cards, we find that using them to enhance our own intuitive abilities tends to provide us the most accurate answers to our lives. Going through challenging times such as a romantic break up, the loss of a loved one, or a job termination, we can use our Tarot cards as an invaluable source of guidance along with our own natural intuition to discover profound answers. As we pull a card and set it into our field of awareness, deep emotions and energies meet us to illuminate how our current struggles relate to what we’ve drawn. Pulling the Lovers card may bring up the sadness of a lost partner we have never fully grieved. Pulling the Four of Wands, on the other hand, may remind us of all the hard work we have done at our job and why we should be proud of ourselves. Using our own intuition in this way, Tarot cards serve to gently poke and prod at hidden areas of the soul that need to be brought into the light.